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The now 40-year-old won bronze medals at the 2007 and 2009 World Championships and a silver medal at the 2008 Olympics, all in the super heavyweight 8th division boxing. Zhang also featured at the 2012 London Games where his interest was ended at the quarter final stage by a certain Anthony Joshua who, of course, went on to take gold.
“I believe this one is of the don’t-blink material. Both guys have devastating power, so needless to say the odds of going the distance are very slim. Although Wilder does have the faster hands, overall I feel Zhang is in a better place physically at the moment and is more able to handle a shot than Wilder is. I favour Zhang to win by knockout.”
Round 2: Joyce with some jabs, but a 1-2 from Zhang buckles Joyce just a bit about a minute in. Joyce trying to get some control of the tempo. BIG LEFT HURTS JOYCE! Referee Howard Foster gets in there to give Joyce a moment. Zhang cannot miss with the left hand to the head. Joyce trying to come back on him now, backing Zhang down, or trying to anyway. Joyce’s jabs just not discouraging Zhang yet, but he’s working away, and Zhang has had conditioning issues. We’ll see if we get into the second half. Zhang 10-9, 20-18.
From afar, George had cringed at how Zhang was being developed. There was no plan, he says. No visible signs of improvement. The only objective seemed to be to lard Zhang’s record with enough warm bodies until one of the top heavyweights would pay a premium to face him. “Do you remember Nikolai Valuev?” asks George, referencing the 7-foot Russian who briefly held a heavyweight title. “That’s how everyone was looking at Zhilei. Like a gimmick.”
In August 2008, it was announced that Mosley would fight at light middleweight against former world champion Ricardo Mayorga (28-6-1, 22 KO’s). The fight was to take place at Home Depot Center in California on September 27, 2008. The first time since 2000 that Mosley would fight in his home state. The fight was for the vacant WBA Inter-Continental light middleweight title. Mosley was guaranteed $1 million. During the first three rounds of the bout, the harder puncher appeared to be Mayorga, who landed right hands from long range. Mayorga’s roughhousing mixed with his usual showboating antics seemed to bother Mosley, who appeared more uncomfortable and agitated. In recklessly lunging in with wild power shots of his own Mosley wound up falling into more clinches and getting caught with punches he should have avoided. Mosley settled down and found the distance in the fourth round and took the next three rounds by timing Mayorga with overhand rights that landed and occasionally following up with short hooks and single body shots. Mosley continued with right hands in the seventh and eighth rounds. Mosley was able to land single power shots in the late rounds, but threw very few combinations. At times Mayorga beat Mosley to the punch with lead right hands. Near the end of the eleventh round, Mosley landed a right hand that splattered blood from Mayorga’s mouth. With less than a minute left in the bout, put Mayorga down on his hands and knees. Mayorga got up on unsteady legs; Mosley stepped in with a short, lead left hook that put Mayorga flat on his back at the bell, resulting in the referee waving the bout off. At the time of stoppage, two judges had Mosley ahead with scored of 107-102 and 105-104, whilst the third judge had Mayorga ahead 105-104. Had the fight gone to scorecards, Mosley would have won via unanimous decision due to the last round being a 10-7.
“My humble opinion is that it was due to the inactivity that Deontay Wilder was performing that way. He fought one round for almost two years which is very inactive and that led to his timing being off,” said Zhang, who is managed by Terry and Tom Lane, and promoted by Queensberry Promotions.
“Shaun has been telling me every day in training that I’m not only a big puncher. I’m a smart boxer and I have a high boxing IQ,” said Zhang, who hit the punching bag for 11 straight minutes before finishing up training on the speed bag.
“Let me start off by saying, you know when it is a good fight when you go back and forth with your pick. My first pick was Wilder because of his power and how he did well with Ortiz who is a southpaw, but then I go back to Zhang who has been in with punchers and did well (i.e. Hrgovic and Joyce). They both fought the same guy in Parker, and both didn’t look great, but I am going to go with Zhang simple because he had Parker down twice in the fight with him. This is why you have to love heavyweight fighting because one punch can change it all. They both have power so I think someone will go down.”
At Thursday’s news conference, Zhang said he is not in London for sightseeing but to take Joyce’s interim title. “Isn’t that stealing?” asked a straight-faced Joyce, bringing awkward laughter from the media.
Can Zhilei Zhang blend commercial appeal and genuine talent to bring a major fight to an untapped audience in Beijing? He says: “Hundreds of millions of people in China are waiting to see a heavyweight world championship fight happen” – and Anthony Joshua is the targeted opponent